This paper describes a methodology for the analysis of classroom talk, called sociocultural discourse analysis, which focuses on the use of language as a social mode of thinking — a tool for teaching-and-learning, constructing knowledge, creating joint understanding and tackling problems collaboratively. It has been used in a series of school-based research projects in the UK and elsewhere and its use is illustrated with data from those projects. The methodology is expressly based on sociocultural theory and, in particular, on the Vygotskian conception of language as both a cultural and a psychological tool. Its application involves a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and enables the study of both educational processes and learning outcomes. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR
Research from interactionist second language acquisition and sociocultural theoretical perspectives shows that referential questions are important for learning, but also, that they can be difficult for English language learners (ELLs) to understand and produce answers to. By integrating analytical tools from both traditions, this study examined the scaffolding functions of a fifth grade teacher's talk. The study found that the teacher utilized various communicative moves to engage ELLs in referential questions. Examples illustrating these communicative moves and their scaffolding functions are provided. Implications from these findings for teacher education are discussed
Mainstream ESL pedagogy has been dominated by monolingual methods for the past century, but the default teaching mode in many EFL contexts is in fact bilingual. A challenge we currently face is to find fresh ways of describing such bilingual teaching. This paper attempts to begin to do so by taking the notions of scaffolding and intertextuality – both deriving from monolingual, monocultural contexts – and applying these to Thai university English classes. Episodes of teacher talk from four classes are examined. It is found that the scaffolding metaphor can readily be applied to bilingual episodes; and that an intertextual analysis across two languages